| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | I. Retirement | | By Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) |
| | | A WRETCHED thing it were, to have our heart | |
| Like a throng’d highway or a populous street, | |
| Where every idle thought has leave to meet, | |
| Pause, or pass on, as in an open mart; | |
| Or like a roadside pool, which no nice art | 5 |
| Has guarded that the cattle may not beat | |
| And foul it with a multitude of feet, | |
| Till of the heavens it can give back no part. | |
| But keep thou thine a holy Solitude: | |
| For He, who would walk there, would walk alone; | 10 |
| He who would drink there, must be first endued | |
| With single right to call that stream his own. | |
| Keep thou thine heart close fasten’d, unreveal’d, | |
| A fencèd garden and a fountain seal’d. | | | | |
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